Ivan Ramcharitar's AICE Media Studies Final Project

 

 Question #4- How did you integrate technology, hardware, software, and online in the making of your film?

  Question #3- How did your skills develop throughout the project?

Question #2- how did my product engage with the audience, and how could it be distributed as a real media text.  

Question 1#- How does my product use or challenge conventions or represent social groups or issues.

All of my scenes are now finished and merged together, along with the sound overlayed. A popular thing that movie companies do before releasing out their final product, is screen it to a variety of different people in the population. Inspired from this, that is what I did to gain the opinions of others so that I have other perspectives of my own critiquing what I could fix in the opening of my film.  I showed the near finished product to my 9-year-old sister, and she mentioned that some of the audio was choppy and not fluent, so I went ahead and added better transitions between audio clips. I showed the opening to a friend of mine similar in age and he mentioned that some shots were still kind of choppy, so I went back and extended some of my previously cut and edited shots and made them longer. Finally, I showed my film to a teacher of mine, and she noticed background voices in the opening credit scene, so I went ahead and muted the audio in those clips.

I tried to keep this rule when filming the scene during the conversation between the homeless man and the protagonist, so that it is clear that the two characters are conversing. To do this, I stayed on the right side of the conversation, and traded camera angles from the same side.  To portray the relationship between these two, I incorporated the technique of high and low angles. In the current circumstances of the film, the homeless man is inferior to the protagonist, as he is poor and seemingly not able to help out the student due to his low intellect. Because of this, I filmed his dialogue from a high angle, as the protagonist's view, to show that he is looking down on him both literally and figuratively. These angles would eventually switch in the movie, for example, in the future scene where the protagonist looks to him for help, he will look up to the homeless man as he then holds the superior role between the two.

 Once again, I had to refilm some shots as the rule of thirds was broken unintentionally. The rule of thirds is important otherwise the audience won't know where to look or focus on in the movie, as their attention is more likely to be gazed in on of the 4 intersections. If there is nothing going on in them, a film might seem boring. To fill in this absence on screen, I recorded scenes with the protagonist's face in one of the points, and I tried to film from further away to include something in the background to make it more satisfying. During the close ups in the testing scene, I included the computer screen in a different point, so that it is clear to what the audience should be focused on. I also incorporated this in the opening scene, having key traits of each location in one of these points. For example, in the very first shot, the tree the homeless man sits by is in the top right point of the quadrant, so that in the future scene, the tree will be familiar to the audienc...

I picked out the school media center as a setting, as it already had props related to my film. Setting up the room for the filming of my opening scene wasn't too difficult, but their still were some obstacles. For one, the section of the media I wanted to film at was being occupied by the class next to it, so I had to find a quieter section, where I would not disturb anybody, and would not be disturbed.  On the table where the protagonist was testing on, I set up a laptop with pencils and markers next to it to simulate a real life testing environment. Next to him, I set up the other careless student with a bit of junk on his desk, further displaying his laziness. In the scene where the protagonist walks with the homeless man, I had to clean off the walkway a little, so his feet would make the scuffing noises that I could overlay later. I left it a little messy though, so that the homeless man would seem dirtier.

When filming the final shots in the morning, I realized the gloominess of the weather for natural lighting during my outside and opening scene ruined the uplifting mood I was trying to make. Instead of creating the cheerful feeling that I intended, a sad and gloomy vibe was present. To fix this I switched from filming during the morning to the bright afternoon, to create a warm and fun vibe for the opening credit scene.   The media was also pretty bright, which was perfect for when the protagonist entered the room with cheerful and high expectations. This however, wasn't great for the shots after he failed the test, as I now wanted a gloomy vibe present. To fix this, I dimmed the lights in the media, and used a dark lighting filter in my editing stage.    I then filmed my outside scenes during the morning, when it was cloudy and gloomy.

 After the change of plans, I had to redo the script. While viewing the opening scenes of other movies in my free time, I  noticed that these scenes actually had a significantly less amount of audio than what I initially had planned to include.  For example, in the movie "Baby Driver", there is almost now dialogue spoken in the first 3 minutes of the movie. This allows for more attention to go onto the opening credits, and creates a more subtle way for the audience to ease into the plot.  This scene does contain bits and pieces of what will be included in the movie, such as intense scenes like the car chase in the beginning. This is amplified by the hype song on the radio being played as a diegetic score. In my film, I will include less dialogue, and instead focus more on other characteristics which will give the audience a glimpse as to what the film is about, and what it will contain.

 "How did you integrate technology, software, hardware, and online?" In the development for the opening of my film, I integrated a large mix of using hardware and software, along with other online technology. This includes editing, filming, and overlaying sound techniques. For this CCR, I will be creating a virtual tour displaying each technology device or feature I used in the making of my film. This will be recorded in the Media center of my school, where most of my Technology processes were done at. I will have several devices out on display, and act as though I am informing an audience, similar to if they were watching a documentary, or type of media of that sort. I will include clips of where those devices were used in my film, and some behind the scenes clips of how they were set up. A social media famous tour guide, "Jose on Tour" serves as an inspiration for my CCR idea. He goes on tour to different museums and cities, briefly explaining each artifact or pla...

 "How did your skills develop throughout this project?" My skills have significantly gotten better throughout the course of this project. The biggest contribution to this, was learning how to use different types of editing software. To display how my skills developed throughout this project, I will create a voiceover of my film explaining each technique I included, its purpose, and how it was developed.  Voice overs need to be clear so that the audience can hear explicitly what is said, as they cannot read my lips. I will include closed captions to aid in this, and I will use my gaming headset to record my audio, as it is more sensitive to sound than my phone speaker is. Once I create the voice over, I will overlay it to my CCR video. I am doing this so that I can easily rerecord any errors in my speech instead of having to rerecord the entire audio in the case of a stutter. transitions parrallee editong light

 "How does your product engage with the audience, and how could this be distributed as a real media text?" As seen on Disney channel, coming of age movies typically receive lots of views, and get relatively high ratings, generally from that of a younger audience. I feel that my film, if distributed as a real media text, could have a close success rate to that of a Disney coming of age film, as it contains a similar plot line. To test this out, I will conduct an interview on people that have viewed the opening to my film. I will ask people in the 15-18 age range questions to see if they can relate to anything in the movie, and if it something they would be interested in watching, if it were to become a real film. I chose this specific age range, as that is the targeted audience. Interviews typically use either open or closed questions to gain data. My interview will have a mix of both, to obtain both quantitative and qualitative data.

"How do your products use or challenge conventions and how do they represent social groups or issues?" The whole theme of my movie is basically to not judge a book by its cover. For example, it is stereotyped that those of Asian heritage are often gifted with high intelligence. My film challenges this stereotype by including the protagonist not doing so great academically.  For this CCR, I will structure it as a podcast. I chose this format for it, as this will allow me to go in depth on the goals and intended messages that I wanted the audience to interpret. Podcasts always open with a jingle and often include a special guest. My special guest will be one of the actors in the film, as they will know the script and overall subject of my film opening. As seen in "Smartless", a celebrity interviewing podcast, it is important to go deep into topics but still switch them in a short amount of time. In this way, viewers stay entertained or informed without losing their at...

  Now that all of my scenes have been filmed, it is time to connect them all and do the final editing. I filmed the outside scenes first, and then the ones in the Spelling bee tryout room last, as the setting I filmed at was always noisy or being used. Because of this, I had to replicate what the protagonist was wearing to the tee, which was even harder as the actor for him would come to school with different hair styles. Once this was figured out, I used iMovie to merge the scenes together. When learning how to do transitions, I didn't realize that some of the clip duration would be sacrificed for the blending of shots. Because of this, I had to go back and film some shots over again, but this time longer so that it would have time to blend. When transitioning from the first to the second scene, I realized that it wasn't as smooth as I would have liked it to be. To fix this, I inserted the sound bridge of the school bell to signify that the school day was over and introduce th...